


motte and bailey

by irnan



Series: mischiefmanaged!verse [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, mischiefmanaged!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't mean to get a dog. (Lily says later that the dog got them.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	motte and bailey

**Author's Note:**

> A motte-and-bailey is a type of fortification involving raised earthworks, a keep on top and a courtyard surrounded by a wall, ditches, palisades etc.

Ginny’s favourite time of day was early morning; she liked to sit on the front steps of the house and watch the sky turn grey, rosy, orange-gold blue. On the morning the dog came, she’d just finished her tea (and was contemplating another) when it wormed its way under the hedge and hid in the grass.

Ginny put her empty mug down carefully and drew her wand out of the pocket of her dressing-gown.

In the long grass, the dog rolled over, panting. It was a short, scruffy sort of dog, black and strong-looking with one white sock.

Ginny moved down the garden path towards it. The wards on fence and gate and hedge all held. No magical enemy could have passed them (save, perhaps, for the one who had done it once before; but he was dead, she had been there, she had seen it). The dog might be dangerous just as a dog – they did get ill sometimes or savage – but Ginny could deal with that. On the other hand, if it was some sort of magical mischief-maker, well, the Head of the Auror’s Office could get his lazy self out of bed and deal with that... it was always adorable to watch him struggling with some mad aspect of wizarding life that was so very normal to her, and she hadn’t got to see it in a good few years now.

The dog rolled over again, onto its belly, and put its head on its paws. It wasn’t wearing a collar. That didn’t have to mean a thing. Her spell didn’t reveal a trace of magic, but the dog did thump its tail at her cheerfully.

“So you’re a stray?” Ginny said to it, doubtfully.

Reasonably enough, the dog didn’t answer. It did raise its head and let its tongue loll out, though.

Ginny tapped her wand against her thigh. “I suppose we could feed you,” she said. “But then you go! Further up and further in, or whatever.”

The dog put its head back down on its paws as if it had understood her, and looked soulful and loving and sad.

Ginny’s heart was still hammering at the back of her throat instead of her ribcage. She clenched her left fist and wished she’d not cut her nails yesterday, missing the bite of them in her palms. How had it gotten in? The wards had been set up specifically not to allow any living creature into the garden, let alone the house, who did  not have  Harry or Ginny’s permission to enter.

The dog rolled over again and wriggled, paws in the air, a plain invitation to scratch its belly.

Ginny looked down at it. Oh God, it really was harmless, wasn’t it?

“You must be joking,” she said.

“Mum?” said Lily’s voice from behind her. “Who are you talking to?”

“Oh, bugger,” Ginny muttered. The dog was fairly adorable, after all, and in this house, what Lily Luna Potter wanted, Lily Luna Potter tended to get.

As it turned out, Lily Luna Potter did, indeed, want the dog.

There followed a visit to the Muggle Council to check for an owner, a visit to the vet to check for fleas, the demolition of the downstairs bathroom, the replacement of half-a-dozen towels no spell known to man could remove the odour of dog shampoo from and a trip to the pet shop to buy collar, lead and basket – not necessarily in that order. Lily and Hugo conferred briefly over the Floo before announcing that the dog’s name was Socks, and the next thing Ginny knew Harry was dog-proofing the hedge.

“Every kid should have a pet,” declared the latter sagely – up to his elbows in unmown grass and knuckles scratched by wire and twigs. “It’s good for ‘em. Teach Lily responsibility...”

“Well,” said Ginny sardonically, “I suppose she can’t learn it the way you and I did.”

By blood and pain and fire; by fear, by death, by loneliness and separation and sacrifice. No, Ginny Weasley’s daughter would learn no lessons from those teachers.

Her husband caught her eye and smiled at her.

“Better keep it out of the Dread Mrs Packenham’s way,” said Ginny.

“Are you sure you’re all right about the dog?”

Ginny sighed and came to sit by him in the sweet-smelling grass. “Yes. Yes, I am. I think maybe.” She paused. “I think maybe I don’t like surprises. Not in this context. Not in this house.”

“Because it’s _this_ house?”

Ah, Harry – always the guilt, the second-guessing about living here: whether it was morbid, whether it was right, whether she was really as fine with it as she said she was.

“Because it’s the house our children live in.”

He considered that for a moment. “I see.”

 _I’d almost like to be the sort of woman who could say selflessly that she’s fine with anything that makes you happy because you make me happy, Harry, but the truth is that I love this house because you and Hermione and Ron took a bombed-out ruin and built it back up and put such friendship and loyalty and laughter and love into it that you made it a home._

 _Possibly your most impressive achievement of them all, by the way_.

“No you don’t,” said Ginny. “You’re an Auror. Reacting is what you do. I’d forgotten how, or I believed I had, and then the dog got under the hedge and I realised I hadn’t forgotten a thing.”

“I’m having trouble telling whether this bothers you or not,” said Harry bluntly.

All of a sudden, Ginny laughed. “So am I,” she said. “I carry my wand around in my dressing gown, which would be one thing if I used it all the time for household spells, which I never do. And stray dogs make me think _possible Death Eater Animagus_ , seventeen years after the war’s ended. That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, I suppose,” said Harry quietly, “it all depends on your point of view. I mean, I feel naked if I leave the office on work stuff and forget to take my Invisibility Cloak.”

“Hmm.”

“I sorted out the wards again yesterday morning,” he added.

“Have you thought... I mean, what I just said, about some things being ridiculous. Have you thought that maybe they didn’t need sorting out?”

Harry twirled the wire-cutters in his hand thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “Is that honest of me or just frightening?”

Ginny smiled. She was about to answer when, from upstairs, there came an indignant bark, a crash, and a bellow of anger.

“Mum!” Al roared, dulcet tones floating out of the open window. “Mum, Dad! Socks is eating my trainers, Dad!”

“It’s _your fault_!” Lily howled back. “ _You_ left them lying around!”

Harry and Ginny looked at each other.

“Let me give you a hand with that fencing,” said Ginny, straight-faced.

If the Tragedy of Albus’ Trainers had not ruined mealtimes for the next week she might even have remembered to answer the question.


End file.
